Darkness
by DCFanatic4life
Summary: She knew the darkness was coming, she'd known for years, creeping up on her like inky blackness...*story written in StephanieIrvine's "Blind" universe, probably should read that first*


**Disclaimer: I do not own the character or real people in this story. The characters belong to WWE and the real people own themselves. I don't even own the concept, that belongs to Jodi (StephanieIrvine).

* * *

**A/N: So I was reading Jodi's (StephanieIrvine) amazing, AMAZING story "Blind" and I so wanted to write in that universe so with her encouragement and permission, I wrote a one-shot in the "Blind" universe. I think it's kind of necessary that you read that story although I don't think it totally is, but you should go read that story anyways because it is really good and really well-written and such an interesting concept. So please go check that out and if you have read it and then read this, leave a review because reviews are awesome and be as brutal as you want.

But seriously, go read her story!

* * *

It wasn't like one day she woke up and it was completely gone. Like the night before she had full vision and then she woke up and it was completely gone. It was nothing like that, nothing she hadn't prepared herself for. They'd told her it could hold out until her 40's or 50's and she'd prayed every night that would happen. She wasn't religious, but still, if there was a higher being maybe they would've granted her that. He or she didn't and that was okay, she'd been preparing for it.

She had made it 22 years with some sort of sight and for that she was grateful. Some people were born blind, some only got a few years and could never remember. Still, and these were the people she envied (though she tried not to), there were many who got the gift of sight. Who would open their eyes in the morning and greet the day. She didn't have that anymore. She'd lived on a clock, ticking down and down and down until it ran out. She'd hoped for a longer clock, but she couldn't complain, 22 years was a lot.

One morning, she just woke up and the veil was complete. She could just make out light and darkness; that was all she had left. It was nothing though, not something she could grab onto. This was the thing she'd been waiting for. Dreading would be too strong a word. She was just waiting patiently for that one morning where she'd wake up and it was gone. Her mother had come into her room asking her how she felt this morning and she'd whispered to her that it had finally come.

She couldn't see her mother, but it was as if her body had already prepared for this and she could acutely hear her mother's tears. Stephanie sighed and reached out her hand, not searching for Linda's, but knowing her mother would find her. She did a moment later and she squeezed her mother's hand and told her that it would all be alright, they knew this was coming and they'd been preparing for it. They'd taken the necessary steps.

Stephanie knew her room inside out and she knew her house. Her room had been on the first floor her entire life so there were no stairs to go down. She couldn't live on her own in this condition, not right now anyways, so she was living with her parents. This had been the plan for years. She didn't mind it, for the most part they gave her, her independence. She'd been on the waiting list for a guide dog for some time and now that it had happened, she would be getting one soon. She was going to name her Izzie.

She knew people felt sorry for her now, but she wanted to tell them she knew this was going to happen. She had known since she was a child and her parents had noticed her squinting and sitting close to the television. They'd just thought she needed glasses, but after a battery of tests the diagnosis had come back. They'd gotten books about it, asked specialists, second, third, fourth opinions, but always the same. She'd sit there, looking around, wondering why her parents were upset, why her mother cried. She'd accepted her fate long before they had.

In those 22 blessed years of sight, she'd taken in as much as she could. She knew she was living on borrowed sight so she made the best of it. She'd make memories that could keep her warm on the nights of darkness she knew was to come. She memorized colors and people and flowers, trees, cars, buildings, the small mundane things nobody else thought too long about. She memorized the patterns on the vases in the hallway. She committed the brown color of boxes. She wanted to store everything she could because she knew it wouldn't last. She knew it wouldn't last and when it was gone, she wanted to hold onto what she could.

So now, when it was dark and all she could see was where the light was and wasn't, she could smile when she pictured something she knew. They would be frozen in her mind in one state. That was a gift, she told herself, her brother would never get older to her sightless mind. He would never get gray or hunched. She would see him as a man of his twenties. Her parents would never become people she couldn't recognize, but the enthusiastic, lively people they were always going to be in her memories. People felt sorry for her, but there were good things. Yes, there were good things.

She knew there were bad things too. She knew that there were people who snickered at her or talked behind her back. She had gotten that blind person heightened sense of sound, but she told no one about it. They didn't need to know her newly-acquired talent. She just ignored them. They didn't know any better. They just thought her the unlucky daughter of Vince McMahon. They thought her handicapped or crippled, stupid stereotypes against the blind. They pitied her, she could tell in their voices. They pitied her or mocked her, thinking that she only had this job because her father was the boss. She probably didn't do her own work, they said. She's an idiot, they said. Rumors, stupid rumors. So she just kept taking one step forward and ignored them.

There was one voice though, one voice that stood out.

She was good at identifying voices by now. It was really the only way she could distinguish a person nowadays. She knew her family's voices the best obviously. She could tell their moods and thoughts with just the slightest inflection. Then there were her coworkers and she was constantly learning new voices, but she committed them all to her brain because they were her new sight where her eyes had failed her. There were some that stood out.

Paul's for instance. She knew he thought it was funny to make fun of her. She could feel his presence and then hear his laugh behind her and she ignored him. He was a jerk, she'd heard that from a lot of people. She vaguely remembered what he looked like when he first started as a rookie. He had a big nose and was ugly. That's all she needed to know. His voice was one she didn't care about.

It wasn't the one voice though.

No, this one voice she didn't know. It was always hushed, just beyond her super hearing. It was sometimes close, sometimes not. Sometimes she'd stop to talk to somebody and she could hear the voice. She couldn't listen closely because she was engaged in conversation usually, but it always seemed to come from wherever Izzie was. Was someone petting Izzie? She didn't think her dog could talk. But she heard the voice and it was there more often than not, but who was it? By the time she had the attention to spare, she'd turn towards Izzie, but she felt no other presence beyond her faithful companion.

It was a male voice; that much she could tell. She could recognize his presence now because that presence always seemed to be around. She'd be walking down the hallway with her mother and there'd be a pause and she could feel it. She could feel eyes on her. They were the pity eyes she could usually feel or the eyes of "there goes that cripple daughter of Vince McMahon." No, these eyes were different. She'd look to where she felt it the most, but her vision never suddenly cleared for just a moment so she could see the body and the eyes behind this presence. So she'd keep on walking, wondering who was there, who was _always_ there.

She was eating one day, she remembered and she was stabbing her fork into some green beans. Her brother had helped her get a plate together before he left her to her own devices. He'd spaced everything on her plate and told her where everything was so she wasn't going and mixing salad with something like apple turnover. Her brother was always helping her with the little things like that. She'd just gone to bite her food when she could feel the eyes on her. She raised her head up and sat there a moment.

There was a cacophony in the catering area. Most people seemed to be eating. Shane had said it was busy, but he'd situated her near the door so Izzie wouldn't have to maneuver around a million tables on the way out. Nobody came to sit with her, just like usual. If she could see, maybe she'd have a book to occupy her time, but it was very difficult to read Braille and eat at the same time. So she just sat there, occasionally talking to Izzie and eating her food. She didn't mind being alone. It wasn't a big deal.

She turned her head around, trying to decipher the direction in which the gaze was coming from. She could feel it from her right side. She "stared" in that direction for a moment, but decided that maybe someone was looking at her and then went back to her food. She should feel weird about the eyes that she knew were constantly on her, the voice that was always just out of her earshot, but for some reason, the presence never bothered her. No, in fact, it kind of comforted her.

"Come on, Izz," Stephanie said as soon as she was finished. She took up the handle on Izzie's back and the dog obediently led Stephanie out of the dining area.

She was walking down the hallway and Izzie was guiding her like usual, when all of a sudden, Stephanie tripped with a gasp as her knee hit the ground. She stayed there for a moment, shell-shocked. Izzie was usually so good about avoiding objects in her path. That was her job after all. Stephanie reached back to where she'd fallen and felt a broom on the ground where she'd tripped. She hadn't even heard it clatter, which only led her to believe someone had been holding it. She tried to listen and could hear the faint snickering from a little ways away.

She ignored it and pretended like she hadn't heard it as she got to her feet, her mother rushing over with a, "Stephanie, are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Stephanie said. "I think that broom dropped accidentally and Izzie just didn't react or something."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, walk me back to my office? I have a meeting with Shane in a little bit," Stephanie said. The time on her watch had told her that Shane was going to meet with her in about ten minutes. Stephanie entered her office and her mother helped her sit and then left to do some work.

Stephanie brushed away at a tear that slipped down her cheek. Nice to know her eyes were good for something. She didn't know and would never figure out what Paul's problem was. Was he just a jerk who liked to make fun of people with disabilities or was there something in particular about her that earned his rancor? She didn't know, but it still hurt that someone would do something like that to her. As if it wasn't enough that she was blind, he had to make it difficult for her to even walk. He probably had some lackeys or something to laugh with him. She wiped another tear away and then pushed the entire thing from her mind. There was no use. She'd been dealt this lot and she would have to persevere.

She kept pressing the button on her watch that said the time to her and wondered why her brother was late. The longer she was alone, the more she thought about Paul's cruel prank. At least most people just talked about her behind her back.

"Hey, Steph, sorry I'm late," Shane said, announcing his presence.

"What took you so long?"

"I had to break up a fight," Shane said, "well, I didn't actually break it up, but two guys were fighting and they wouldn't stop until I got there, you know, authority figure and all that."

"What guys?" she asked.

"Oh, Paul Levesque and Chris Irvine," Shane said. "Who knows over what? I think tempers got heated or something, whatever."

"Paul deserves it, whatever he did I'm sure he deserved it," she said.

Shane laughed, "Don't like him?"

"Can't say that I do," she told him. "Chris Irvine, you know, I've never met him, not even introduced."

"Really? He's a nice guy, you should say hi to him sometime."

"Yeah…yeah, I think I will. Sometime…"


End file.
